Sir Keir Starmer in talks with ‘a number of countries’ over return hubs for failed asylum seekers
The UK is in talks with “a number of countries” about sending failed asylum seekers to return hubs in third countries, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
The prime minister confirmed the plan at a press conference alongside his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama, in which the pair announced plans to strengthen cooperation on illegal migration.
Politics Live: Britain’s economy grew more than expected in first quarter of 2025
Sir Keir described the hubs as a “really important innovation” that complements other measures the government is taking to crack down on criminal smuggling gangs.
“We are in talks with a number of countries about return hubs,” he said.
“At the appropriate time, I’ll be able to give you further details in relation to it.”
Sir Keir did not say which countries he is in talks with, but the subject is understood not to be on the agenda for his meetings in Tirana on Thursday.
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Are ‘return hubs’ the new Rwanda plan?
Mr Rama suggested he is not open to hosting UK detention centres, telling reporters: “We have been asked by several countries if we were open to it, and we said no, because we are loyal to the marriage with Italy and the rest is just love.”
The Italian scheme was intended to provide offshore processing for migrants, but that plan has been held up by legal action.
Keir Starmer attends a bilateral meeting with Edi Rama. Pic: PA
Following the press conference, Downing Street said the return hubs will target asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected and who are seeking to frustrate their deportation or have lost their paperwork.
By removing them to another country, the government hopes to reduce their ability to find other reasons to prevent deportation, such as starting a family.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “This will basically apply to people who have exhausted all legal routes to remain in the UK but are attempting to stall, using various tactics, whether it’s losing their paperwork or using other tactics to frustrate their removal.
“It will ensure that they don’t have the chance to make their removal harder by using tactics such as starting a family, et cetera, as we have seen from cases in the past.
“That obviously will reduce the cost to the taxpayer.”
Return hubs are a different concept from the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, which Sir Keir scrapped almost immediately after winning the general election.
The prime minister is shown the procedures carried out by search teams checking vehicles arriving in the ferry port from Italy in Tirana. Pic: Reuters
The Rwanda plan involved deporting all people who arrived in the UK by unauthorised means to the east African country, where their asylum claims would be processed for them to settle there, not in Britain.
It ultimately failed to get off the ground before the Tories lost the election, despite millions spent, after it was repeatedly challenged in the courts.
Return hubs ‘a con’
Shadow home office minister Chris Philp insisted on Thursday that it would have acted as a deterrent, whereas the return hubs are a “con on the British public”.
He said: “It’s better than nothing but it won’t work because most of the people crossing the Channel are of nationalities where they will get their asylum claims granted.
“It’s a con on the British public for Keir Starmer to claim these return hubs will have any practical effect.”
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Mr Philp also called it a “slap in the face” and “humiliation” for the prime minister that Albania has already rejected the idea.
He said Sir Keir travelled all that way to “announce a few tweaks” to a cooperation deal on illegal immigration that was struck by the Conservatives in 2022.
Read More:
What are return hubs and how will they work?
What are Sir Keir Starmer’s new immigration rules?
Boat crossings pass 12,000
In 2022, arrivals from Albania accounted for around a third of all small boat crossings – a higher number than from any other country.
Over the past three years, those numbers have been cut by 95%. The number of Albanians returned to their home country has also more than doubled to 5,294 last year, from just over 2,000 two years earlier.
Sir Keir is the first British prime minister to travel to Albania for bilateral talks.
Other announcements he is due to make include expanding a programme to detect migrants attempting to travel using fake or stolen documents, with the UK donating new anti-forgery machines.
The visit comes in the same week that the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats passed 12,000 for the year.
The figure puts 2025 on course to be a record year for crossings – something which will cause unease for Labour as it was elected on a manifesto promise to “smash the gangs”.
The government is under pressure to act tough on immigration amid Reform UK’s meteoric rise in the polls. Earlier this week, Sir Keir announced plans to crack down on legal migration, including banning care homes from hiring overseas.
News broke on May 15 that Coinbase was the target of a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data for social engineering scams.
While less than 1% of Coinbase’s active monthly users were reportedly affected, the expected remediation and reimbursement expenses range from $180 million to $400 million, as the exchange pledged to repay all phishing attack victims.
Despite the attack on the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, investor sentiment remains optimistic, with the Fear & Greed Index remaining firmly in the “Greed” zone above 69, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Adding to investor optimism, Coinbase saw over $1 billion worth of Bitcoin withdrawn on May 9, marking the highest net outflow recorded in 2025 so far, triggering analyst predictions of a supply-shock driven Bitcoin rally.
Coinbase faces $400 million bill after insider phishing attack
Coinbase was hit by a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data, the company said on May 15.
Coinbase said a group of external actors bribed and coordinated with several customer support contractors to access internal systems and steal limited user account data.
“These insiders abused their access to customer support systems to steal the account data for a small subset of customers,” Coinbase said, adding that no passwords, private keys, funds or Coinbase Prime accounts were affected.
Less than 1% of Coinbase’s monthly transacting users’ data was affected by the attack, the company said.
After stealing the data, the attackers attempted to extort $20 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from Coinbase in exchange for not disclosing the breach. Coinbase refused the demand.
Instead, the company offered a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the scheme.
$1 billion Bitcoin exits Coinbase in a day as analysts warn of supply shock
Institutional demand for Bitcoin is growing, as Coinbase, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, recorded its highest daily outflows of Bitcoin in 2025 on May 9.
On May 9, Coinbase saw 9,739 Bitcoin, worth more than $1 billion, withdrawn from the exchange, the highest net outflow recorded in 2025, according to Bitwise head of European research André Dragosch.
“Institutional appetite for Bitcoin is accelerating,” Dragosch added in a May 13 X post.
The outflow occurred as Bitcoin traded above $103,600 and just days after the White House announced a 90-day reduction in reciprocal tariffs between the US and China, easing market concerns and lifting broader investor sentiment.
The 90-day suspension of additional tariffs removed the risk of “sudden re-escalation,” which may help Bitcoin, altcoins and the wider stock market rally due to improved risk appetite, Nansen’s principal research analyst, Aurelie Barthere, told Cointelegraph.
DeFi lender Aave reaches $40 billion in value locked onchain
Aave, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has reached a new record of funds onchain, according to data from DefiLlama.
In an X post, Aave said it topped $40.3 billion in total value locked (TVL) on May 12. Onchain data reveals that Aave v3, the latest version of the protocol, has about $40 billion in TVL.
Aave is a DeFi lending protocol that lets users borrow cryptocurrency by depositing other types of cryptocurrency as collateral. Meanwhile, lenders earn yield from borrowers.
“With these milestones, Aave is proving its dominance in the Lending Space,” DeFi analyst Jonaso said in a May 12 X post. TVL represents the total value of cryptocurrency deposited into a protocol’s smart contracts.
SEC delays Solana ETF as decisions for Polkadot, XRP loom
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pushed back its decision on a proposed spot Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF), with the cryptocurrency industry now looking to the deadlines for the Polkadot and XRP-based ETFs in June.
The SEC delayed its decision on listing Grayscale’s spot Solana (SOL) Trust ETF on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to October 2025, according to a May 13 filing by the securities regulator.
The decision came the week after the SEC delayed its ruling on Canary Capital’s Litecoin (LTC) ETF, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart wrote in a May 5 X post.
Spot ETFs are key drivers of liquidity and institutional adoption for digital assets. For Bitcoin, the US spot Bitcoin ETFs accounted for an estimated 75% of new investment after launching, which helped BTC recapture the $50,000 mark in February 2024, a month after the ETFs debuted for trading.
While a Solana ETF may generate only a fraction of the inflows of Bitcoin ETFs, it could increase Solana’s institutional adoption in the long term by offering investors a “regulated investment vehicle” that may still attract billions of dollars in capital, Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, told Cointelegraph.
Starknet hits “Stage 1” decentralization, tops ZK-rollups for value locked
Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform Starknet has reached a decentralization milestone laid out by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and is now the largest zero-knowledge rollup-based network by total value locked.
Starknet said in a news release shared with Cointelegraph that it has hit “Stage 1” decentralization, according to a framework Buterin laid out in 2022, which means the network operates with limited oversight or “training wheels.”
Starknet added that the framework was the “gold standard onchain tool for analyzing Ethereum scaling solutions,” and said it achieved the milestone through changes such as creating a security council and censorship-avoidance mechanisms.
While the system still allows intervention from a security council, it has implemented a fully functional validity proof system governed by smart contracts.
Starknet is now the only layer-2 ZK-rollup network to have reached Stage 1 and has grown to be the largest ZK-rollup blockchain with a total value locked of $629 million, just ahead of ZKsync’s $610 million, according to L2beat.
Starknet is the fifth-largest layer-2 network by value locked, with the top four all Optimistic rollup-based, having reached Stage 1 decentralization using fraud proofs.
DeFi market overview
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green.
Solana-based memecoin Dogwifhat (WIF) rose over 43% as the week’s biggest gainer, followed by decentralized exchange Raydium’s (RAY) token, up nearly 19% over the past week.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
Terminally ill journalist Dame Esther Rantzen was branded “disrespectful” and “insulting” by MPs during a debate on the assisted dying bill.
The broadcaster and Childline founder wrote to all MPs ahead of Friday’s Commons’ debate urging them to vote for what she called a “crucial reform”.
MPs were voting on amendments made to the bill – the report stage – following months of a committee going line by line through it after being introduced last year by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.
The bill says people with six months to live who have the mental capacity can request medical assistance to legally end their life.
Dame Esther, who has stage four lung cancer, suggested many MPs who opposed the bill have “undeclared personal religious beliefs which mean no precautions would satisfy them”.
Campaigners opposing the legislation demonstrated outside parliament. Pic: PA
However, in a highly charged Commons session, some MPs took umbrage with that.
Labour MP Florence Eshalomi, who is a Christian and voted against the bill the first time, told the Commons: “This is frankly insulting to disabled people, hard working professionals up and down the country, who have raised many valid concerns about this bill, to have it dismissed as religious beliefs.”
Jess Asato, a Labour MP who, as a child, cared for her grandmother with serious health problems, said Dame Esther “accused those of us who have concerns about the bills as having undeclared religious beliefs”.
“Many colleagues found this distasteful and disrespectful,” said the MP, who previously voted against the bill.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who voted against the bill last year, backed Ms Asato’s criticism as he retweeted her X post saying Dame Esther’s comment about faith was “particularly distasteful”.
Ms Asato’s Commons comment was met with agreement by many MPs who said: “Hear, hear.”
Read more:
What is in the assisted dying bill?
Requirement for High Court judge scrapped
Pro-assisted dying campaigners outside parliament on the eve of Friday’s debate. Pic: AP
‘Clumsy criticism’
Conservative MP Dr Kieran Mullan said there had been some “unhelpful remarks by high profile campaigners”, and while he is not religious he was “concerned to see a clumsy criticism” that those objecting to the bill are doing so because of their “religious beliefs”.
In a dig at Dame Esther’s comments, Rebecca Paul, Tory MP for Reigate, said she is not against assisted dying “in principle” but is against the bill – and wanted to put on the record: “I have no personal religious beliefs.”
The debate saw some MPs on the verge of tears as they described their own experiences of having debilitating conditions, or having family members in pain.
MPs do not have to vote along party lines for the bill.
Kim Leadbeater is the MP who introduced the bill
How did MPs vote?
An amendment tabled by Ms Leadbeater, which “expands the protection” for medical practitioners to clarify they have “no obligation” to be part of an assisted death was passed by MPs.
It also provides legal protections for medical professionals to ensure they are not subject to any kind of punishment for refusing to carry out an assisted death.
Another new clause to allow employers to impose a blanket ban on staff facilitating an assisted death was rejected.
Since the bill was first introduced, there have been significant changes, including the replacement of a High Court judge to sign assisted dying off by a three-member expert panel – on top of two doctors having to approve.
The time at which assisted dying would come into effect was doubled to four years from when it becomes law, if voted through.
Medical colleges pull support
Opponents have argued the bill does not have enough safeguards and is being rushed through.
Three days before the debate, the Royal College of Psychiatrists pulled its support for the bill over the change that will mean a psychiatrist must be on the panel that decides if someone can die.
The next day, the Royal College of Physicians (the largest college) adopted a similar position.
However, supporters argue it is time to change the law, with Ms Leadbeater saying: “If we do not vote to change the law, we are essentially saying that the status quo is acceptable.”
Zach Witkoff, one of the co-founders of the Donald Trump family-backed crypto platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI), has rebuffed efforts by US lawmakers to investigate the president’s potential conflicts of interest.
In a May 15 letter to Senator Richard Blumenthal, lawyers for World Liberty Financial claimed a call to investigate the crypto platform was based on “fundamentally flawed premises and inaccuracies.” Witkoff did not specifically address any allegations, claiming that WLFI was “too busy building” for oversight.
“The Company rejects the false choice between innovation and oversight,” said the letter. “What it opposes is the misuses of regulatory authority and uncertainty to suppress lawful innovation.”
Blumenthal, the ranking member of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was one of many Democrats calling for investigations and legislative changes in response to Trump’s ties to WLFI, as well as his TRUMP memecoin and its dinner scheduled for the top tokenholders on May 22.
The GENIUS Act, a bill to recognize stablecoins as payment instruments currently being considered in Congress, may be a bellwether for how lawmakers intend to handle the president’s potential conflicts of interest.
Stablecoin bill debate continues in Republican-controlled Congress
One of Blumenthal’s and many US lawmakers’ concerns about Trump’s connection to WLFI is the USD1 stablecoin, which the platform launched in March. An Abu Dhabi-based investment firm announced in May that it would use the stablecoin to settle a $2-billion investment in Binance, a crypto exchange that had previously been the target of an investigation by US authorities.
“WLFI’s financial entanglements with the President, his family, and the Trump Administration present unprecedented conflicts of interest and national security risks, including potential violations of the foreign emoluments clause,” Blumenthal wrote in a May 6 letter to Witkoff.
Related: What are the next steps for the US stablecoin bill?
Some Democrats have called for clarification within the GENIUS Act to ensure that Trump was not able to personally profit from stablecoins whose legislation he may have influenced and then have the opportunity to sign into law. However, as of May 16, it was unclear whether any future vote on the bill would address these concerns. Cointelegraph reached out to Sen. Blumenthal’s office for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.
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